About five minutes ago I was coming in from my car on my street near the zoo, and an airliner came overhead flying so low that I could make out the lights under the wings, and I could see the painting on the tail. I didn't read what it said, but it seemed WAY lower than an airliner usually flies over the city. Anyone else see it?

Southwest's flight path is over my house - easy to recognize because of the color on their planes. A few days ago they were coming in really low - it might have been Tuesday; it was a bad weather day. Anyway, we're having a lot of wind and cloud cover today. It's probably planes coming in lower to try to avoid rough air.

I'd imagine that it's this. I'm not a pilot or aeronautic engineer or any of the above, but with the warm/cold and cloud coverage we've been having, I'd imagine (please correct me if I'm wrong!, i'm just assuming) it would make for some unpredictable turbulence when descending.

As someone who spent 2 years living a couple hundred yards from the flightline at Ramstein with his windows open because Germans don't believe in A/C, if you're under a C-5 making a low pass you'll know its a C-5. Those things are just huge, loud, ugly planes. Even inside them you can't hear anything over those huge engines, but they're still awesome for transatlantic flights cuz of the leg room.

Not a bad guess, but This was definitely a commercial airliner. I'm pretty sure I saw the united logo on the tail... Not 100% because it was a quick look but I do know it was a commercial airline brand and a four engine engine passenger jet.

If it was a United plane with four engines it would have to be a 747 or a 777. But of those would be extremely rare for PIT. However if that is what it was they probably would have been landing as part of a diversion so they could have been lower than normal and off a standard flight path.

A 777 is a two-engine aircraft. The options would pretty much be a 747 or an A340 and both would be highly, highly unlikely to see coming into PIT. Except, as you note, as some sort of diversion. More likely, if it had 4 engines it was a KC135 they go in and out all the time and are often doing various maneuvers and drills.

I saw that- I was carrying quarter round base moulding into my house and I actually though 'wow, the passengers can count how many pieces I have in my hand right now.' Weird. Seems to happen when it's extra cloudy.